David Rasche ("Sledge Hammer") and Jan Maxwell ("Chitty Chitty Bang Bang") star in the show as husband-and-wife actors Josef and Maria Tura, who market Josef's resemblance to Adolph Hitler to promote a play.

Here's how The News covered the original film, and the remake.

In the March 7, 1942, edition of The News, film critic Kate Cameron wrote that "To Be or Not to Be" is "important because it is Carole Lombard's last picture." The comedienne died in a plane crash earlier that year while on a war bonds tour. Cameron noted that the film "presents her characteristically leaving us with a smile."

While she gave the show 3 1/2 stars, she wrote, "it isn't, I am sorry to say, Lubitsch's most intriguing comedy, nor is it the best of Jack Benny vehicles, but it will do until another Benny buggy comes along."

The critic wrote that director Lubitsch, a German immigrant, "pokes fun at the Gestapo officials and their spies and has some good-natured sport at the expense of a company of actors. But the tragic reality of Warsaw's situation is no laughing matter."

Mel Brooks remade the film with he and his wife, Anne Bancroft, in the starring roles.

In the Dec. 16, 1983, edition of The News, critic Harry Haun gave the movie three stars.

He wrote that Brooks "works overtime finding laughs more in line with his rambunctious kind of comedy." But Haun found that "only in Anne Bancroft's "luscious, Lombard-light performance of Brooks' better (but parenthetically billed) half do you get a hint of this film's smart and stylish origin."

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THE FULL REVIEWS OF THE ORIGINAL AND THE REMAKE OF "TO BE OR NOT TO BE"

Carole Lombard exits with smile, as usual

This review originally ran in the March 7, 1942 edition of the New York Daily News.

By Kate Cameron

3 1/2 stars

"To Be or Not to Be," which opened at the Rivoli Theatre yesterday, is important because it is Carole Lombard's last picture. She finished making it immediately before her death and it presents her characterisically leaving us wih a smile.

It isn't, I am sorry to say, Lubitsch's most intriguing comedy, nor is it the best of Jack Benny vehicles, but it will do until another Benny buggy comes along.

Humor and Suspense

The picture, produced by Alexander Korda, under Lubitsch's direction, has some deliciously funny moments and every now and then a serious sequence is injected that startles the audience into an attitude of taut suspense. But it seems to me that the background of the Melchior Lenggel story is a bit too grim for joking.

Lubitsch's assignment of garnering fun from the Gestapo occupation of Warsaw, after the German military machine had seized the Polish capital, is a tough one, although he made a valiant effort to extract every ounce of comedy possible from these circumstances. He pokes fun at the Gestapo officials and their spies and has some good-natured sport at the expense of a company of actors. But the tragic reality of Warsaw's situation is no laughing matter.

Benny, Lombard fine team

Benny and Miss Lombard work smoothly together as the Lunt and Fontanne of Warsaw. They are assisted by a comedy-wise cast that includes Felix Bressart, Sig Ruman, Stanley Ridges, Tom Dugan, Maude Eburne, Lionel Atwill and young Robert Stack, as the juvenile relief.

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Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft team up

This review originally ran in the December 16, 1983 edition of the New York Daily News.

By HARRY HAUN

Alan Johnson's "To Be or Not to Be" is virtually a shot-for-shot, yuk-for-yuk remake of Ernst Lubitsch's delightfully audacious antic of 1942 about the early days of the Nazi occupation.

Who is Alan Johnson?

Well, he's no Lubitsch, that's for sure, but he is the choreographer who staged the great "Springtime for Hitler" number for Mel Brooks' "The Producers," and that essentially is the sort of funny fairyland we've stumbled into again. "To Be or Not to Be" is eminently more amusing now than it was 41 years ago, when Nazi-occupied Poland was something less than a minefield of mirth. (That fact, soberly seconded by the plane-crash death of the film's leading lady, Carole Lombard, just before the release, kept the movie from acquiring cult status for years.)

Controversy is not the only thing that has gone out of this comedy. With Brooks now in the star spotlight, you no longer get the preening egotist of a ham actor that Jack Benny memorably minced out - although you get a flash of it every time Brooks launches haughtily into Hamlet's soliloqy. (The title line still signals a handsome Polish pilot in the audience to scurry backstage for assignations with the actor's wife - an ill-timed exit much more ego-crushing than being merely cuckolded.) For the most part, that particular aspect of character-comedy is lost on Brooks, who works overtime finding laughs more in line with his ranbunctious kind of comedy.

The same goes for Charles Durning, who has a very aggressive go at Gestapo chief Colonel Erhardt ("So they call me Concentration Camp Erhardt!"). It's a broadly engaging caricature, but no remotely near the definitive dummkopf of dear old Sig Ruman, a classic piece of work even he never topped.

Only in Anne Bancroft's Luscious, Lombard-light performance of Brooks' better (but parenthetically billed) half do you get a hint of this film's smart and stylish origin. Otherwise, the celebrated "Lubitsch" touch" is no match for Brooks' jackhammer wit.

The less you remember the original film, the more you'll like this latter-day facsimile. It's enough that film makers remembered - and obviously revered the work, judging from the way it has been slavishly reproduced. Huge unks of the original screenplay have been preserved in this reprise by Thomas ("Annie") Meehan and Ronny Graham; to their credit, they've had the wisdom to borrow from the best and not tinker with the material unduly.

Graham also plays the company's stage manager (named Sondheim so Brooks can utter the deathless line, "Sondheim, send in the clowns!"). Tim Matheson has proper dash as Bancroft's romantic dalliance, and Jose Ferrer is a fine double-agent villain.

Overhauling has, happily, been minimal. The leading lady's lady-in-waiting is now lavender-colored as a gay dresser (James Haake) and labeled with a pink triangle for concentration-camp consignment. There has also been a token - if somewhat scrambled - attempt to inject some music into the proceedings: "Sweet Georgia Brown in Polish, for hilarious example, and a "Naughty Nazis" number that seems like a second chorus of "Springtime for Hitler" (a lyric here refers anachronistically to "Pakistan," which didn't exist until 1947.)

These frills notwithstanding, the film is faithful in its frenetic fashion. "To Be or Not To Be" - that is the ticket!